


A kiss

by SherlockianGirl14



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: AU, M/M, kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-14 06:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1255603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockianGirl14/pseuds/SherlockianGirl14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically an AU in which the kiss is between Charles and Erik, not Moira (although her memory IS wiped).<br/>There will be Charles/Professor X's, Raven/Mystique's and Erik/Magneto's POV. In this, Erik has already gotten Emma Frost somehow before the conference (she is crucial for this).<br/>I am terrible at descriptions, so sorry! :D<br/>Please feel free to leave some crit, I hope you like it! :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Charles

“Charles.”

“I cannot talk about him, Hank-”

“Beast. He's called Beast now. And Beast, it's Professor X, right?” Alex- _Havok-_ chipped in.

“I'm afraid I- I simply cannot talk about him,” Charles replied, trying to keep his voice from breaking with tears unshed. 

“Charles,” Beast repeated, ignoring Havok's glare.

“Professor, you're gonna have to,” Banshee said.

“The government conference is this afternoon,” Havok pointed out.

“We're just trying to help. You're going to have to talk to them,” Banshee reminded him. 

“I know,” Charles swallowed, nodding slightly, feeling the tears build. “Can- can I have some time alone, please? To... Compose my ideas.”

The boys left him, luckily. He wheeled his chair over to the window and stared out at the manor's gardens. He knew they'd ask... What he could remember. From the last time he saw Erik. 

He'd have been okay. He wouldn't have cried. He'd have survived until that night, when Beast and Havok and Banshee had helped him wash uncomfortably, and Havok had moaned again that they needed to get staff for this, when he was lying in bed and he couldn't move his legs and all he had was the reality of his predicament. 

_Then,_ he would have cried.

But no; something near the horizon line caught his eye. A huge satellite. And the thoughts of sharing Erik's memory, of thanking him for the beauty, all came rushing in. 

Then, Charles lost his majestic appearance. He was just a crippled man who'd lost his best friend and the woman he called his sister and he was weak. Then, he cried, in thought of Erik, in thought of That Day, the day that didn't bear thinking about.

He knew Erik hadn't meant to hurt him. Right before the plane crashed, he remembered Erik's body being thrown over his own to prevent him from being hurt. Erik hadn't planned to hurt him, never. But he'd planned to destroy the human race with him, and Charles couldn't do that. Not all people were bad and as long as Erik was determined to destroy them, Charles could not be on Erik's side. That was the reason he had stayed when Erik left.

 

Attempting to compose himself, he thought of all the things he had remembered from the last time he saw Erik (for to him the man he knew was not Magneto. If he was, then Charles had befriended a man just as bad as Shaw, and he most certainly had not). 

He could remember they had been outside. He glanced down, directly below his window.  _On that path, I believe._

Erik had been pushing Charles' chair.

It had been raining.

That was all he knew. 

He had no idea where the others had been, or if he'd seen Mystique, too. He had no idea who the hell had let Erik near him. Maybe nobody had a choice; after all, his chair was metal. Erik could just... Summon him. 

He couldn't remember a word that had been shared, but he had the feeling the words between them were not harsh. Well, perhaps logically, they would have been at first, but somehow Charles simply didn't feel as though the air would have been negative.

Charles frowned, pushing two fingers to his temple as though that could help him think. He tuned into Beast's brain, listening to the conversation that now unfolded a few rooms away from him. He wished he could hear it from the start, but he had to make do with listening to it from the present.

“ _I'm not washing him again,” Havok snapped. “I'm not gay, I don't want to see some guy naked every day!”_

“ _None of us are, none of us do, but he needs us,” Beast warned._

“ _He needs us_ now _,” Banshee said quietly._

“ _N- No. He needs some time alone. We have to respect him,” Beast muttered._

Charles tuned out then. He frowned, his mouth softening to open slightly as he thought hard, trying to remember.

Usually, nothing came. But he tried regardless, every day, for the chance, however small, that this time it would.

His eyes widened. He remembered something. Something new. Something... Just what was it, precisely... He allowed the memory to define itself before he tried to access it.

 

_A laugh. His. Slightly sad._

“ _My friend, I do not know what brought you here today...”_

“ _I needed to say something.”_

“ _Then say it.”_

“ _It can't be said with words, Charles, that's not the way it should be.”_

“ _Then show me,” Charles said, desperate for knowledge. “Show me, Erik.”_

“ _Magneto.”_

“ _You, like this, will always be Erik to me. This is Erik. This is_ not _Magneto.”_

_Erik chose not to comment about those words. He stopped the chair and walked around to look Charles in the eye. His eyes were filled with tears and Charles noted that nobody with eyes that perfect should ever be let to cry._

_Then, he felt it. Erik's hands, gently stoking Charles' hair as though he was trying to memorise it so that he could summon the thought at any moment he wished to. Erik's lips on his own, gently telling him everything he needed to know. He could access Erik's mind, of course; he did not wear the mask today. But he allowed Erik to tell him this way._

_The kiss was gentle. It was everything Erik's actions at present were not tending to be._

_It was an apology. It was a goodbye._

_And then... It was over._

 


	2. Mystique

Mystique tried to steady her nerves. _Think like a government official._ Emma said, inside her mind. Mystique knew both Emma and Azazel were almost directly outside the door- Emma, to guide Mystique through any temptations she may have to tell Charles who she was and, if necessary, to take over her mind entirely. Azazel was there to... Take care of it if someone chose to disturb Emma.

_But it's Charles-_

_Charles who? This guy is just some prick who can't tell you what you need to hear, remember?_

_I'm doing my best, Emma._

“Tell us what you can about the last time you met with the man who calls himself Magneto,” another man said. Mystique remembered that day. She'd had to take the form of Charles. Being him had been weird. She'd never taken his form in her life- it was what she'd offered in exchange for his promise not to read her mind. She'd wanted so badly to go and see him, too.

She'd consoled herself with being able to watch over Beast. She remembered the kiss they'd shared, such a long time ago. Who knows, if Erik hadn't interrupted and scared away shy Hank, what would have happened between the two of them. She'd longed to tell him that she wasn't actually Charles, but... He'd have been angry. They were on opposite sides now. It didn't appear to matter to anyone that they were still all on the same coin, if they were following the expression. Mystique had always found that saying funny- surely it was saying that though you were different you were part of one unit?

“I- I don't remember much... It's come back, in parts, at different times,” Charles admitted. Mystique help back a smile as she thought of Erik insisting Emma took the memory in such a way that Charles could get small, certain parts back. She didn't know what they were herself yet. She had no idea what had happened.

“What are they, the parts you remember?” she prompted, her voice not her own. It belonged, of course, to the man whose form she had taken, who was most likely now being scared into silence by the duo she'd taken to calling the elements- wind, and fire.

“Erik was pushing my chair. We were outside; it was raining. Just spitting, it wasn't heavy.”

“That all?” another man asked, slightly impatiently.

“Well... There is something else, actually. I only remembered it today, and uh...And...” he blushed, looking away uncomfortably for a moment. He freaking _blushed?_ What did Magneto _do?_ Charles doesn't _blush!_

“Well?” she asked, fighting to keep focus on... Well, not turning bright blue in front of all these people who were all set against Magneto and his people (whom she happened to be one of). “And what?”

“And a kiss...” Charles said, almost dreamily.

Her reaction to that was too fast for Emma to do anything, for _her_ to do anything. Her entire body turned bright blue, her eyes yellow, her hair red. She could feel it without having to look. She could feel the eyes of everyone there on her, suddenly forgetting the laughable thing Charles Xavier had just told them.

“Raven, be calm...” she heard Charles say, as though she and him were still on the same side. But then Azazel appeared beside her and grabbed her arm violently.

She was in the hallway without time to think, watching Azazel grab hold of Emma, too, and then all three of them were inside Magneto's office.

 

“You kissed him,” she spat at Erik.

“And _you_ , apparently, blew your cover in front of numerous CIA agents, all of whom want all of us gone. Emma, Azazel...” Magneto said, and gestured for them to go. Almost immediately, they disappeared.

“I'm sorry. I couldn't control it,” Raven said.

“I'm not angry at you, Raven.”

“Mystique.”

“Raven...”

“Fine... _Erik_. What did you kiss him for?” she asked almost curiously.

“Look,” he sighed, leaning back. He moved a hand a couple of inches and a chair was dragged by it's metal legs across the floor towards her. She sat down. “This is... Complicated to explain. I'm not even sure I should explain it to you, considering that Charles to you was a best friend, a brother, a teacher and... Well, a father.”

“I think you should explain it to me., she replied almost coldly. “And if it's complicated, then do your best to make it simple.”

“The events of our last meeting wasn't the only memory Emma took from Charles.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

_The first time they kissed. The night that Darwin died. The night they went to stay in the Xavier mansion._

_Erik and Charles had been up late, playing chess absentmindedly, whilst discussing the kids' training, sat by the fire. The children had gone to bed long ago; they should be getting to sleep soon, too. They had a long day ahead of them come the morning. The training began properly then._

_Charles won that game. Erik knew they should be asleep, but in his friend's company, he rarely felt tired._

“ _Another game?” he offered, but Charles shook his head._

“ _Erik, my friend, may I ask you something?”_

“ _Go ahead,” Erik replied, gesturing with his hands for Charles to fire away._

“ _No I... I can't,” Charles muttered, ducking his head and chuckling. Erik frowned._

_Charles pressed two fingers to the side of his head and looked focussed. Then... He smiled. Positively beamed. It looked odd to see Charles, composed and serious, suddenly looking so bashful and happy._

“ _How long have you known?” Charles asked, a conversational tone._

“ _Since I was.. God, 16?” Erik replied, pausing for a moment. “And you?”_

“ _20\. By that point it seemed a little late to spring it upon Raven and, well, in the age we live in... I know she would not judge, my friend, she knows first hand how different feels but... Society doesn't, does it?”_

_Erik smirked suddenly._

“ _Why did you want to know that, all of a sudden?”_

_Charles cleared his throat uncomfortably and Erik grinned._

“ _You have a crush on me...” Charles opened his mouth to protest, but Erik held up a hand and he fell silent. “Stand up.”_

_Charles obeyed. Erik slid his eyes down to the arm of his chair and then back again, his smile more sincere now. Again, Charles followed Erik's instructions without a word in complaint._

“ _Okay. Now teach me something,_ Professor X. _Teach me something about you...”_

_And that's when Charles leant forwards without hesitation and kissed him._

 

“Raven, don't look so hurt.”

“He didn't think he could tell me? _He didn't think he could tell me?!”_

“Raven, he couldn't talk of it, not in those days and, realistically, not even now, really.”

“He didn't tell _me._ He told _you._ But not me. He didn't trust me.”

“He does trust you. He just doesn't trust society, not fully. His mutancy is less important in that respect than his sexuality- I guess that's because there's a standard for 'who you should like'. Mutants, there are no standards for because people barely knew they existed.”

“And so you... And Charles...”

“What? No, no, no. Nothing like...” Erik frowned, then smirked. “Charles insisted. Said, you know, first night there, you guys'd probably wake up easily...”

“Jesus, Magneto,” Raven muttered, looking almost flustered. “So, you...”

“Well. Yes. We were in a relationship for months.”

“Meant to wait until marriage...”

“What would happen?” Erik snorted. “One of us got pregnant?!”

“Do you miss him?” Raven asked curiously, then regretted it. “I'm sorry.”

“Yes, I do. Much the same as I imagine you do, him being your guardian for so long. But Charles wasn't just someone I slept with, Raven, know that. He was a friend- my best friend. A confidant. A brother. A life partner. And, yes... I did love him. But... That's gone now, isn't it? So we'd better try and move on,” Erik said, ending firmly even as a stab of pain shot through his heart. “Off you go now. I'm sure you have something to occupy yourself with.”

Raven scowled, recognising that the conversation was over. She turned and walked out coldly and then, at the door, she paused, seeming to consider something. Erik's throat tightened. He had a bad feeling about this.

She turned around, shifting into Charles' form. Before the... Day at the beach. She smiled in his way and pressed two fingers to her forehead in exactly his manor.

“How long have you known?” she asked, in a voice that sounded different to the one Charles had used when he'd asked. She didn't mean that he was gay. She meant that he loved Charles.

She turned again and left.

Erik stared at the closed door, throat tight with tears, eyes shining. He blinked slowly and the tears began to fall, leaving him taking huge gulps just to keep breathing.

Through the tears, he half-reached out, as if trying to grab Charles from out of the air. He squeezed his eyes tight shut for a moment, to no effect.

 _Since the moment you told me I was not alone, fished me out of the water and gave me back life. I know I would have died down there. Then, I was willing to. I didn't know what I'd miss by dying. Nor did you, but you saved me regardless. I know it's cliché, Charles, but I loved you from the moment I looking into your eyes the first time. I just wish you could know it too, because I know it was the same for you. But... It's easier for you. Not knowing. I couldn't resist letting you remember that kiss, but I couldn't live with myself knowing you'd feel this way, too, and you wouldn't be to blame. Maybe that's all you think we were. Us. I hope so. It would have been simpler for_ us _to have just been... A kiss._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIN
> 
>  
> 
> I hope I didn't mess that up too badly! Please leave a comment, I'll love you forever! Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it. :)


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